Sanity, Madness and the Family (Routledge Classics)

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In the late 1950s the psychiatrist R.D.Laing and psychoanalyst Aaron Esterson spent five years interviewing eleven families of female patients diagnosed as 'schizophrenic'. Sanity, Madness and the Family is the result of their work. Eleven vivid case studies, often dramatic and disturbing, reveal patterns of affection and fear, manipulation and indifference within the family. But it was the conclusions they drew from their research that caused such controversy: they suggest that some forms of mental disorder are only comprehensible within their social and family contexts; their symptoms the manifestations of people struggling to live in untenable situations.

Sanity, Madness and the Family was met with widespread hostility by the psychiatric profession on its first publication, where the prevailing view was to treat psychosis as a medical problem to be solved. Yet it has done a great deal to draw attention to the complex and contested nature of psychosis. Above all, Laing and Esterson thought that if you understood the patient's world their apparent madness would become socially intelligible.

This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Hilary Mantel.

From the Back Cover

One of Laing's key works.

About the Author

R.D. Laing (1927–1989) was one of the best-known and most controversial psychiatrists of the post-war period. After a short period as a psychiatrist in the British Army he moved to the Tavistock Institute in London in 1956, where he worked alongside leading psychotherapists such as John Bowlby and D.W. Winnicott. In 1965 he co-founded the Philadelphia Practice in London, where patients, doctors and staff mixed freely without hierarchy. His many books include The Divided Self, Self and Others and Knots.

Aaron Esterson (1923–1999) was an existential psychoanalyst and family therapist, and with R.D. Laing helped found the Philadelphia Practice.

Review:

4.0 out of 5

80.00% of customers are satisfied

5.0 out of 5 stars Heartbreaking Stories of People's Lives

J. · 20 May 2023

Someone very close to me has recently been diagnosed with schizophrenia so I am an avid reader of anything on this subject. I want to offer the best understanding I can possibly muster. In this book, the authors recount eleven case studies of female, institutionalised, ECT-subjected, lost souls. Laing and Esterson interviewed the immediate family of each psychiatric patient to establish their relationship with the 'victim'. What emerges is, without exception, family dysfunction. I don't know what this is really telling us other than nurturing is a/the key factor. I think this is an important observation. We always seem to say disease is a mixture of nature or nurture but we put ourselves in a position of powerlessness if we say mental health is all down to genetics and nature and brain chemistry because there's not much to do about that other than medicate, medicate, medicate...

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic bookvunerable

A.C. · 30 May 2019

Although I don't like the idea of putting into boxes with diagnoses etc (I'm a believer that underneath all mental illnesses is unresolved pain, albeit acted in different ways), this book is great in terms of how families and well other people in life choose to treat others in order to gain and keep control so not to feel . Had any of the young women in this book grew up in different families, they most of likely would have come out fine so to speak and not dealt with someone else's inability to tolerate vulnerability and to tolerate pain. Highly recommend.

Print on demand copy.

C.J.D. · 6 February 2022

Got print on demand copy, but was not noted as such at time of purchase.

Five Stars

R.S. · 16 November 2017

One of the pioneering work of the anti-psychiatry movement.

Missverstehbarer und missverstandener Klassiker

!. · 5 February 2017

Es handelt sich um einen häufig missverstandenen und missverstehbaren 'Klassiker'. Die Autoren beschäftigen sich mit der Rolle der Familie, aus der als 'schizophren' diagnostizierte Frauen stammen. Anhand von Interwiews mit den betroffenen Patientinnen und ihren Familien stellen die Autoren dar, wie die 'typischen Symptome' der Schizophrenie (z.B. Wahnvorstellungen, Sinnestäuschungen, Ich-Störungen) im familiären Kontext 'Sinn' ergeben und verstanden werden können. Sie berühren damit die Frage, ob Schizophrenie als medizinische Krankheitseinheit oder als soziale Konstruktion und damit 'phänomenologisch' verstanden werden sollte. Auch heute ist es spannend, sich mit dieser Frage auseinander zu setzen. Daher finde ich das Buch lesenswert für diejenigen, die sich eingehender mit Schizophrenie beschäftigen und dabei einen Blick über den Tellerrand der 'Standard-Psychiatrielehrbücher' werfen möchten. Als Einstiegslektüre in das Thema eignet sich das Buch meiner Meinung nach nicht.

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Sanity, Madness and the Family (Routledge Classics)

Name: Sanity, Madness and the Family (Routledge Classics)
Brand: Routledge
SKU: K113868774K
Price: 12.00 BHD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.6 (5 reviews)

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Product origin: United Kingdom

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